Danse Macabre
by trimurti
Summary: [For Evil Mina's Alphabet challenge] Even gods must die.


Danse Macabre

(C) Square Enix

This is for Evil Mina's Alphabet challenge.

-0-

_Step to the right. Parry the demon's claws. Swing Excalibur and let the blade slice through its chest. Lunge forward with the killing thrust._

Once, a lifetime ago, Cidolfas Orlandu was a boy whose knees knocked together uncontrollably at the mere thought of fighting. Oh, God, fighting. That meant being hit, which hurt. That meant being laughed at by the other boys, which hurt worse. But his father told him that the pain was good, and his only son tried so hard to believe that. His mother told him to imagine every battle as a dance with its own rhythm; the key to winning was to divine that primal rhythm and flow with it. He tried so hard to follow the words of his honorable parents, and eventually that scared little boy became a stalwart young man, who became a noble warrior, who became a god.

_Pull Excalibur out. Use the momentum to carry yourself backwards. Let the demon's magic erupt around you. Ignore the pain._

Balbanes, bless his soul, understood. All they had during the war was battle after mind-numbing battle, but they were careful not to let war define who they were. They were more than knights; they were men who loved their country. However, that did not mean that they shied away from the battle. Instead, they embraced the rhythm of the battle, slash-pivot-thrust-step-swing, until all that was left was the aching burn along their arms and legs and the sour stench of blood and sweat, a mixture that would inevitably corrode their delicate heirloom armors. That was how Cidolfas preferred to remember Balbanes, with long blond hair matted across his forehead as he congratulated their troops on their part in the battle, for the parts they would continue to play.

_Swing in an arc. Tear through the demons. Ignore the pain. Is everyone all right? Ramza!  
_  
It is a better memory than that of later, when Balbanes was a shriveled husk of a man with a persistent cough.

_Ramza. Ramza. Swing Excalibur. A miss? Dodge Altima's magic blast. Clench teeth in pain._

Ramza is everything Balbanes was as a young man, Cidolfas thinks. Noble in ways deeper than blood, with eyes alit with the simple need to do the right thing. He might be a melancholy young man, he might be too willing to run headfirst into the gleaming-fanged traps their enemies set out in front of him, but he was just as able to tear through them with nothing more than the full force of his will. That, and the help of his allies. Ramza, who shines with honesty, has attracted the hearts of a variety of people, friends and foes alike, and that awes Cidolfas.

_Ignore the pain. Pivot. Slice downward. Don't revel in its pain! This dance is not over. Shift weight onto the good leg. Ignore the pain.  
_  
Balbanes would've been proud, Cidolfas knows. Balbanes would've been so proud of his youngest son, who is neither boy nor god, but something deeper, something better.

_Unleash the Holy Explosion. Make sure that Ramza has reached Alma. Ignore the pain. Move in front of Balbanes' children. Protect them as if they were Olan. Stare the devil in its eyes. Ready Excalibur.  
_  
Cidolfas also knows that Ramza must live. There has to be a semblance of good in Ivalice, an antidote to the attitude of greed and deficit of morality that has poisoned their homeland. This is not the land that he and Balbanes had risked their lives for. This cannot be the way it ends, with a child-manipulator climbing on the backs of the corpses the Lion War has created to the throne.

_Jump. Cleave Altima in half. Ignore the pain. Shield eyes from the light the demon's corpse creates. Ignore the pain. The battle is not over. Dodge this new Altima's attack._

This cannot be the way it ends.

_Ignore the pain. Shift weight onto a leg. It doesn't matter anymore. Just keep fighting.  
_  
This cannot be...

_Ignore the pain._

-End-

It feels so nice to drop in like this. I missed this section! Not sure if I violated the rule about the two alphabet characters having an argument, but one would think that Orlandu and Altima aren't fighting for the fun of it. And just for reference, 'A' is for my middle name, 'O' for the county I live in...or 'C' for the state I live in. Either way, Orlandu's pretty ignored, isn't he?


End file.
